University Librarian's Cabinet: Minutes of the April 4, 2006 Meeting

Present:

Boyle, Fultz, Gaunt, Golden, Mullins, Puniello, Tehrani, Sewell, Zapcic

Absent:

Agnew

Guest:

R. Becker

University Librarian's Report – Gaunt

• Agnew is presenting at the university's cyber-infrastructure conference. Gaunt will ask Agnew to present at a future Cabinet meeting.
• Gaunt noted that because our minutes are on the public Web we should be careful not to include specific vendor names for purchase or comparison discussions and decisions. If staff are interested in more detail, all Cabinet members can provide that information as appropriate. An alternative is to keep internal minutes closed to anyone outside RUL.
• Mentoring: At the last faculty meeting the faculty mentoring program was discussed and approved. Follow up includes the design of an orientation program for the new mentors. Gaunt met with the faculty coordinator, deputy coordinator, chair of the A&P committee, and the Personnel Officer to prepare an outline. Six tenure-track librarians are eligible for the program. Gaunt will send Cabinet the list. Recommendation was made that mentors not be in the same units as the candidates. The group felt it is important to attract good mentors and to recognize them as a special and important group. The mentors chosen will be excellent in the three criteria on which the librarians are judged. Gaunt will send out a call to faculty and will ask Cabinet to nominate potential mentors as well.
• Will hear today or tomorrow from the university on the status of the P4P. Because of the budget situation it is possible that the university may delay the financial part of the process. P4P reviews should continue as planned until we know otherwise.
• Boyle and Gaunt met with Jerry Warshaver to discuss middle states assessment. He was impressed with the variety of things we do in the library and wants to feature them. Will have librarians on all of the committees. Theme is undergraduate education and assessment.
• Gaunt discussed with Cabinet two handouts from the Deans Council regarding the promotion and tenure process: "Appendix G-1, Sample Letter – Solicitation of External Confidential Evaluation for Individuals Who Are Members of the General Teaching/Research Faculty." The university would like to ask letter writers to specifically address whether the candidate would be promoted at the writer's institution, and also to ask the writers for a brief bio and note their relationship to the candidate. The letter would need to be customized for librarians. Boyle and Gaunt will take Cabinet's comments and respond to VP Furmanski. The University will discuss this with the AAUP. For now, we will continue to use the current letters.
• Michael Pazzani, VP for Research and Graduate and Professional Education spoke at the Deans Council on research at Rutgers compared to other institutions. Although our record is good, it is behind our peers. Pazzani noted that he will be providing workshops here on successful grant writing and will be encouraging PI's to visit program officers in Washington, which is often key to a successful proposal. Francine Newsome Pfeiffer distributed the "Federal Directed Funding Request Policy" that the university uses to rate what it is going to do when looking for earmarks. The Libraries' Congressional papers proposal was accepted this year by the administration in its package of earmark proposals that it would support in Washington. Calls will come out in August and September and Rutgers only sponsors 10-12 proposals. Cabinet will decide if the Libraries have proposals at the level they are looking. All proposals from units must come through the dean.
• VP Furmanski said that there is no news on the state's budget. Higher education is a top priority but there have been no changes. The university will continue the advocacy campaign.
• Gaunt is a member of President McCormick's Budget Advisory Committee, which has met once. VP Furmanski is chairing the group. Two things came out: there will be a very high level committee looking at principles and guidelines at the university level and will continue the philosophy of giving deans local control over how they apportion their reductions. The use of student fees was discussed. Students present said the fees could be used for things for which they were not originally intended if they supported student programs and if their re-direction was transparent to students. Gaunt will remind VP Furmanski that a portion of the computer fee supports library databases.
• Gaunt distributed to Cabinet the March 2006 CLIR Executive Summary that highlights "Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes."

Debriefing on the University Constituency Report Progress – Gaunt

• Lipman & Hern reported to the Administrative Leadership Council on the progress of the university´s communications program. They have been working with the data from the constituency survey and have focused on a “branding” program. It has been more challenging at Rutgers than other large institutions because of the nature of the three campuses. They realize from the communications survey that the public finds Rutgers difficult to understand and the things we take for granted about Rutgers do not resonate with the public, especially the concept of an “AAU research institution.” They have been spending a lot of time trying to get a feel for the university across the three campuses and what is unique about Rutgers. Because their presentation was to the New Brunswick leadership they focused their comments on the New Brunswick campus, but also tried to talk at the university level. When developing a communication program, a brand and message has to be developed first, and then the decision made on how to implement. In determining what the university stands for, everyone has to buy into it before going to the outside.

President´s Budget Advisory Group and Budget Scenarios – Gaunt/N. Hendrickson

• Based on the Governor´s planned budget, the university´s cut is 15%; there is a 10% cut to the base and because of the other programs cut, it amounts to 15%. Fuel and electrical increases are included. Gaunt doesn´t anticipate a 15% cut to the libraries, but thinks it will amount to 8-10%. Hendrickson prepared budget reduction scenarios of 5, 8, and 10% for Cabinet review; trying to give a magnitude of what $1M represents. The Planning and Coordinating Committee wants to be involved; could set up a budget group to take a closer look and make recommendations; give some Cabinet guidelines as to our values and principles. Looked at the 8% budget scenario to get a sense of what it actually means. We have to fulfill our grant and signed contractual obligations; we need to determine how we are going to provide resources to our faculty – here or elsewhere. In thinking about core functions, we have to think about access to information. Have to consider library by library and consider staffing in each building. Units need to be thinking about the local unit and the entire organization. Cabinet needs to engage their staff and librarians in what could be done differently. Most of our discussion with our units will be about core services. We should think about future things for planning, what should we move forward on, and what not. What is our status of preservation and digital development? Allow sufficient amount of next cabinet meeting to discuss the budget. Gaunt and Hendrickson will provide additional data for the next budget discussion. Sewell will look into collections – big-ticket electronic books and binding. Look at what kinds of revenues we can collect. Gaunt thanked Hendrickson for all her work in preparing for the budget discussion.

AUL for Administrative Services Position Description – Gaunt

• Position was discussed at the Planning and Coordinating Committee meeting. Had agreed previously that the position could or could not be a librarian provided that the candidate had the appropriate background. In considering how to advertise the position we could use either the librarian title – AUL for Administrative Services, or we could use a non-librarian title – Director of Administrative Services. Following a discussion on whether the librarian title should be used in either case, we decided that it should not, supporting the recommendation from the Planning and Coordinating Committee. While we prefer a librarian in this position, a non-librarian, such as an associate/assistant dean from the academic community could be a potential candidate. In order to attract the broadest number of candidates, we will use the more generic title for the advertising, but offer the alternate title if a librarian is the successful candidate.

Strategic Plan Discussion – Gaunt

• Ron Becker, chair of the Strategic Plan Committee joined Cabinet for the discussion. Ron noted that the success of the strategic plan depended on the budget, but that this issue was addressed in the plan itself in the implementation section. Annual priorities will be set based on the budget. Cabinet thinks the plan read well and is ready to be discussed on a wider level. Gaunt indicated to Cabinet that the Strategic Plan had been placed on the agenda for the next Rutgers University Libraries´ Advisory Committee. The question is whether we are ready to roll it out for broad discussion. Because of timing there is little opportunity for discussion this semester. Agreed that we will put on the Web site and also produce the plan in brochure form for broader distribution. When the plan is reproduced for external use, specific people´s names should not be used; exception would be President McCormick´s name, which should be left as is. For now we will remove “Draft," make small changes, correct typos, and put the latest version on the Web. Will do PR in the fall. Gaunt will announce officially that the final version is going on the Web site, will thank the committee and make a note that we appreciate the reports and background information that was done in preparation for the Strategic Plan. This plan will now be our plan, and the preliminary reports will be moved from the public pages to the staff pages. Gaunt thanked Becker for his work as chair of the committee. Boyle and Gaunt will coordinate all the documents.

Announcements

Gaunt

• The frequency of the department reports by Cabinet members will be done based on the amount of agenda items. If we don´t have volunteers, we will call on you. Will do a ranking in terms of who can be ready when. Reports will be done once a semester.

Sewell

• The Gift Policies and Procedures for Collections have been finished and are on the Web. Sewell will present at the next Cabinet meeting.

Boyle

• A panel discussion on open access and scholarly publications was held on March 29 in the SCC Lecture Hall. There was a nice turnout.

Tehrani

• Met with the New Brunswick Collection Development group and discussed the Alexander Library collections; promised we would start this summer by meeting with the technical services people and develop a plan. On a preservation note we have discovered some significant mold problems in the Alexander Library collections that needs to be treated.

Puniello

• Attended an Academic Coordinating Council meeting yesterday. There is an updated list of the committees for Transforming Undergraduate Education; Michael Beals is chair of the Transforming Undergraduate Education Implementation Steering Committee.